The Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Association, as part of a coalition of 40 neighborhood associations called Communities United for Reasonable Development, appealed the decision of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission to the Planning and Land Use Management Committee of the Los Angeles City Council regarding the proposed construction of the 1.1-million-square-foot Millennium Hollywood Project near the intersection of Vine Street and Yucca Street in Hollywood, which you can read here:

http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2013/13-0593_misc_z_6-18-13.pdf   

The Millennium Project's EIR contains fraudulent data that could cost lives as well as collapse our already-delicate infrastructure.

Caltrans has rejected the traffic study conducted by the Millennium Project's traffic consultant.

In a May 7, 2013 letter to Councilman (now Mayor) Garcetti, Caltrans declared:

"We are writing this letter to reiterate Caltrans' concerns that the Environmental Impact Report (EIR), Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), and traffic study for this project did not fulfill the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)."

In a December 10, 2012 letter, Caltrans explained:

"Currently, the Level of Service (LOS) for US-101 is operating at LOS F. Any additional trips will worsen the existing freeway conditions. The [Traffic Impact Study] did not include a cumulative traffic analysis for US-101, which would consider the trips generated from the 58 related projects that are referred to in the DEIR, the proposed NBC Universal Project, and growth from the Hollywood Community Plan."

Separately, independent studies conducted by geology Professor James Dolan of USC, the foremost expert in the world on the Hollywood Fault, and our own independent geologist have exposed at least three material frauds in the geology reports prepared by the Millennium Project developer's geologist, as relied on by the City and the Millennium Project developer. The reports falsely stated that the Hollywood Fault was .4 miles away from the project location.  To reach that conclusion, they disregarded the findings of the Crook & Proctor (1992) and the Dolan (1997) studies, and they disregarded data from the California Geological Survey, all of which agreed that there were active fault traces on and across the Millennium Project site.  The Millennium reports also falsely depicted the Millennium Project site location as being about 850 feet north of its actual location in order to make it appear that it is outside of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety Fault Rupture Study Area, which would require additional seismic testing.

After hearing our attorney Robert Silverstein's presentation of the damning evidence from the California Geological Survey and the two peer-reviewed geological studies showing that the southern strand of the Hollywood Fault is directly under the Millennium Project site, Councilman Englander had this to say:

"Regardless of the underlying geological and soil conditions, in fact, these faults and thresholds whether active or inactive in fact pose a significant risk to the entire city of Los Angeles."

"But you're pointing to this one particular area. I just wanted to show fault in your study that yeah, there's a true threat but it is everywhere in Los Angeles."

Councilman Englander's comments demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the distinction between building to withstand strong ground motions in an earthquake (all buildings in southern California must account for this to varying degrees) vs. building a structure for human occupancy across the trace of an active fault that may be subject to surface displacements of several meters, which of course cannot be allowed. This project is not something that can be allowed to proceed without a much more thorough review of the potential for active faulting at the site.   

Millennium Partners knows they have been caught in a lie trying to say at the CPC hearing that the Hollywood Fault was .4 mile away. Now they have been forced to at least partially admit the truth.

"Brian Lewis, a spokesman for the developers, said available evidence suggests that the Hollywood fault runs in the vicinity of the project site, but it has never been specifically mapped." (Beverly Press July 4, 2013)

 http://parklabreanewsbeverlypress.com/news/2013/07/if-millennium-project-site-is-unbuildable-who%E2%80%99s-at-fault/

But of course it has been mapped. The Crook and Procter study specifically analyzed the test borings on Cahuenga Boulevard done for the Metro Project. They identified the Hollywood Fault as being located just south of Yucca Street. The test borings done on the Millennium Project site, as analyzed by our geologist, show that it is there, too. 

Crook and Procter (1992) map of Hollywood Fault.

There is no doubt that the fault is active and it is moving:

 http://www.scec.org/research/special/SCEC001activefaultsLA.pdf  

"Dolan et al. (1997) estimate that the strike separation rate on the Hollywood fault is greater than 0.25 mm/yr."

This is what happened the last time the Hollywood Fault moved:

ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/reposit/2007/2007205.pdf  

"Radiocarbon ages from above and below a well-defined paleo-surface rupture indicate that the penultimate surface rupture on the Hollywood fault occurred ~8.2±1.3 ka (Dolan et al., 2000b). The vertical component of displacement during this event was 1.2 m, mountain-side-up. Inasmuch as this sense of vertical separation is opposite to the long- term, oblique-reverse dip-slip component of motion on this predominantly left-lateral strike-slip fault, the total surface displacement during this earthquake must have been the result of strike-slip offset of irregular topography. This suggests that the total displacement was relatively large, probably on the order of several meters. We therefore conservatively assume a magnitude of 7.0 for this paleo-earthquake."

In the 8,000 years since the last magnitude 7 earthquake, at the rate of more than .25mm/year, the Hollywood Fault has accumulated at least 2 meters of strain for another magnitude 7 earthquake.

According to the MTA Redline Subway EIR, there is a 5% chance of another magnitude 7 earthquake on the Santa Monica-Hollywood fault within the next 100 years, which is the expected duration of a building. You wouldn't eat a meal with a 5% chance of killing you, or send your children to a school where they have a 5% chance of dying, or get on a plane with a 5% chance of crashing. Why then would Councilman Englander be willing to play this kind of roulette with the lives of thousands of Angelinos?

Govt. Code Section 8871(c) provides in pertinent part: "state government also has fundamental responsibilities to take all reasonable measures to reduce the seismic hazards to which the citizens of California are exposed. The state should assume a leadership role by influencing the direction of existing and future national earthquake hazard reduction programs and should serve as a model for local hazard reduction measures." Dr. Parrish, the California State Geologist, is mandated with this responsibility. State law clearly prohibits any structure used or intended for supporting or sheltering any use or occupancy, which is expected to have a human occupancy rate of more than 2,000 person-hours per year, from being built within 50 feet of an active fault. Dr. Parrish must become publicly involved in seeing that the Millennium Project does not get built on the active Hollywood Fault and investigating the falsification of evidence and suppression of other evidence by Millennium Partners and the City of Los Angeles Planning Dept. and City Council.

Here is a computer generated video of the Santa Monica(blue)-Hollywood(yellow)-Raymond(green) fault system:

In a prophetic case of reality imitating art watch this video clip from the 1974 movie "Earthquake":

(advance to the 4 min 7 sec mark if it doesn't do so automatically.)

As Charlton Heston says in the movie, "We should have never put up those 40-story monstrosities."

The Millennium Project has been trying to use its money to influence the City and the community to stop resisting. Their consulting architect is the President of the City Planning Commission. They have spent over $460,000 in just the first quarter of 2013 in lobbying. They have contributed to the campaigns of the Mayor and many of the Councilmembers. They have made a financial settlement with one of the appellants in the neighborhood of $2 million. But we will not be bought. Lives are at stake. The fraud is so immense that it must be exposed and defeated for the sake of the future of Hollywood.

Please help us by going to  www.stopthemillenniumhollywood.org and donate to our ongoing effort to appeal to the City Council and in court, if necessary, to defeat this grotesque monstrosity.